The Danes go native
Ælfred’s legacy was cemented by the achievements of his son, Eadweard, his daughter Æðelflæd and his grandson, Æðelstan.
All inherited a professionalised state machinery but all of them are more obscure figures than Ælfred. Nevertheless, by the time of his death in 924, Eadweard had largely completed the task of bringing Danish territories under his control.
Both what is now England and what is now Scotland continued to be a patchwork with even small polities continuing to resurface. Under the surface façade, national unification retrofits exhibit the deepest of structural cracks.
Constantin was able to make much political capital out of his victories but Cait (Caithness) was completely outside his sphere of influence whilst most of the islands formed some part of the Norse thalassocracy. Strathclyde seems to disappear about 870 but reappears as ‘Cumbria’ in later centuries. By Constantin’s time its capital had shifted to Govan, now a fringe of Glasgow. But, despite the northward move of capital, its capacity to reach southwards seems to have been extended with parts of the Lake District (formerly subjugated by Northumbria following the annexation of Rheged) coming into its realm.
Northumbria’s own projection of a unified kingdom had never been more than a pipe dream. At this point the kingdom seems to have rather easily split back into Bernicia and Deira. But even the long-held idea of a Scandinavian kingdom based at Jorvik begins to look rather flimsy, given the amount of power still retained by pre-existing and long-established institutions.
The shifting relationship between Mercia and Wessex
This is not a book with much of a focus on the Mercian kings – and it is hard to find a good one. But Adams does suggest that Æðelred of Mercia (and we don’t really know if we should call him king or Lord) was tied to a power base in the Hwicce lands around Gloucester.
Æðelred seems to have become incapacitated and his wife, Æðelflæd took over. We cannot be quite sure when this was: perhaps at some point between 902 and 909. Æðelflæd was Ælfred’s daughter. Mercia’s relations with its traditional antagonists in Powys and Gwynedd were conducted independently of Wessex. Anarawd, originally an ally of Guðrøðr’s York, had abandoned his links to Jorvik in 890 and submitted to Ælfred’s overlordship. Venedotian (i.e. ‘of Gwynedd’) – Mercian relations reverted to more traditional tensions.
Changes in Alba and Dublin at the start of the century too
Around 900 in Alba, Constantin, grandson of Cinead mac Ailpin, came to the throne, marking a significant moment in the history of northern Britain. Further south, from Wessex’s perspective, the first ten years of the tenth century might initially seem uneventful. However, there is external momentum gathering. In 902 the Annals of Ulster mention something absolutely critical: the expulsion of the heathen Norse from Dublin. Ingimundr crossed the sea to Mona-Anglesey and took Maes Osfeilion. Elsewhere we hear that he was defeated in the Battle of Ros Meilion. These two locations are taken to be the same one: Llanfaes, just north of Beaumaris. A third (and much copied) source adds that Ingimundr was defeated in a battle against Cadell ap Rhodri (the King of Seisyllwg) although Adams suggests that, given the locations involved, his brother Anarawd, King of Gwynedd, is far more likely.
Æðelflæd creates a buffer-zone between Mercia and North Wales
What happens next in Mercia has to be put in context. It is quite possible that Cheshire had suffered depopulation and that encouraging settlement there might have brought economic advantages. Ingimundr migt not have been the only Norse warlord from Ireland looking for somewhere in the area.
But it was Ingimundr who appears to have asked the Myrcna Hlæfdige for land and she gave him a buffer zone between Mercia’s heartlands and Gwynedd. She was probably never ignorant of Ingimundr’s medium-term intentions; her actions simply suited anti-Venedotian policy at the time.
Æðelflæd got wind of the plans to seize Chester and cllected a large force from every direction. It is also possible that she had instinctively fortified it. The Mercian Register entry for 907 notes that Chester had been rebuilt.
It is possible that this is one recorded story amongst many. One give-away might be the Cuerdale Hoard found on the banks of the Ribble in 1840, consisting of nearly 9000 items.
Æðelwold’s rebellion
Wessex had a new king, following Ælfred’s death. Now better known as Edward ‘the Elder’, Eadweard was the older son of Ælfred. He was, of course, also Æðelflæd’s brother. Right from the start he faced a rival claim to the throne from Æðelwold.
Who were Æðelwold’s allies?
They fell into several broad groupings:
- Disaffected branches of the West Saxon ruling dynasties
- Northumbrian freebooters
- East Angles seeking military glory
- Both Essex and Danish warbands
- Beorhtsige son of Beornnoð – very probably representatives of the ‘B’ dynastic house in Mercia. But the southern kingdoms and their allies were by now highly organised.
Alfred’s line might have seemed clear cut but Æðelwold was the son of Alfred’s older brother, Athelred, who had died in 871 – the year of nine engagements. In fact, the challenger wasted no time at all. Alfred was barely dead when he seized the royal townships of Christchurch and Wimbourne – the latter being his own father’s burial place. Eadweard did not have time to waste either: he brought his own force to the nearby Iron Age hillfort of Badbury Rings.
It is probable that Æðelwold had been promised help – but it never materialised. He barricaded himself behind the Minster gates at Wimbourne and waited. There are obscure areas here. For example, what role in all this did Eadweard’s sister play? She was Æðelgifu and seems to have been arrested immediately after. Æðelwold had to move across the country quickly as a political vacuum in York appears to have left the door open for him to be king there for a while. Meanwhile on Whitsun 900, Eadweard was crowned, very probably at Kingston on Thames.
In 903, Æðelwold left York and sailed for Essex. There there was an ancient antagonism with the people of Kent which was ripe for exploitation. Moving into East Anglia, he was able to assemble a much more serious force. There a local king called Eohric / Eirikr seem to have been Guðrum’s successor.
In 904 Æðelwold led a coalition into Mercia as a test for his venture. It was a long way from being a sustained and serious attack but it did include a raid on Cricklade. Eadweard pursed the army resulting in the Battle of Holme – a serious and bloody event – before issuing a disengagement order, seemingly ignored by the Men of Kent. There are lots of narrative gaps here: we don’t know the course of the battle, we don’t even know if it is Holme in Huntingdonshire. Whatever, Æðelwold’s coalition was over.
You get the feeling that all is not what it seems at this point. Eadweard’s status ought to have been riding high, but coinage from both Wessex and Mercia from this period suggests a period of weakness with silver evidently in short supply. Both London and Canterbury seem to have been barely operative as mints. Eadweard was compelled to make a peace at Tiddingford – but upon what terms?
As if the period were not obscure enough, there is then the movement of St Oswald from Bardney in Lincolnshire. There are so many questions here? Why did Wessex-Mercia want his torso? He had after all been killed by Mercians. How did they get it out of Scandinavian controlled territory – as a result of a large scale raid in 909? Or as some part of the agreement at Tiddingford?
It seems that the children of the Wessex Royal house were appropriating charismatic cult figures for a new political purpose. We see the same thing with Wærburg, ironically the granddaughter of Oswald’s slayer, Penda. There is also a distant echo of this in Alba too where the (mac) Ailpin dynasty acquired Colomban relics.
Whatever the logic, it seems to be a bit of a turning point. The southern economy seems to begin to strengthen. Eadweard starts to build new burhs and fortresses. He annexed two Mercian towns to drive a military wedge into Danish territories. All along the east – west watershed there are renewed military fortifications. It is inconceivable that there is not a brother-sister co-operation going on here. Mercian mints in Chester, Shrewsbury, Herford and Gloucester were striking coins with Eadweard’s name on them. Using Maldon as a new base, much of Essex now came under Eadweard’s control as well.
In 914 Eadweard established defensive positions at Eddisbury and Warwick. That did not stop Danish incursions in the period. [Indeed, in Bicester and Banbury these are still a part of local tradition even with limited evidence.] Danish forces moved south from Northampton and Leicester and got as far as Hook Norton on the northern edge of the Cotswolds and Luton. Both incursions were eventually repelled by locals.
Signs that there is a propaganda effort at work in the period are given by the very serious and incompatible differences in versions of the ASC over the period. But from 917 the narrative is once again unified and clear – but it is invasion.
The frontline is clearly in the South Midlands. Before Easter in 917, Eadweard refortified the old Roman fort at Towcester, right on the Watling Street divide. There is also another, less easily identifiable position at Wigingamere , thought to be Old Linslade. The Host tried to take Towcester but failed and opted instead for night raids. Then another Host came into the field from Huntingdon.
In mid-summer of 917 this Second Host attempted to storm Wigingamere. Eadweard succeeded in gathering together a strong army from the surrounding area, marched to Tempsford and slew the king. With the tide moving his way, he assembled a force from Kent, Sussex and Essex and attacked Colchester. But the Host retaliated and launched an attack on the new burh at Maldon.
Autumn brought no let-up. Eadweard brought Wessex levies to protect Towcester. In an unprecedented move, the Roman fort was reinforced with stone. This seems to have been enough for Scandinavian Northampton to submit. A new force now moved on to occupy Colchester. The Host at Cambridge and all the people of East Anglia now submitted to Eadweard and, around the same time, Mercian forces took Derby. In 918, seemingly without bloodshed, Leicester also submitted. It is not really clear how East Midlands locals greeted such news as anti-Wessex feelings may have overridden anti-Danish sentiment.
Death of the ‘Lady of Mercia’
In 918 York negotiated a peace with Mercia. Tempsford may well have resulted in a political vacuum in York and this seems to have coincided with a revival of the fortunes of Bernicia and Alba.
But that summer Aðelflæd died at Tamworth. Eadweard was at Stamford at the time but immediately moved on Tamworth and occupied it. The Northern Welsh gave him their allegiance. From now on he intended to run Wessex and Mercia as one integrated state.
Æþelstan’s reign
Her brother, Eadweard died at Farndon on Dee in Cheshire in July 924. Mercia and Wessex may have had different ideas about who should replace him. Even after the death of Ælfweard, there seems to have been continued opposition to Æþelstan in Winchester.
Æþelstan is believed to have been fostered at Æþelred’s court in Mercia and that might explain some of the concerns from Wessex. He was the son of Eadweard and his first wife, Ecgwynn. He never married and had no children. But, whilst the first four years of his reign might have been full of internal suspicions, by 934, things had changed. Æþelstan’s inauguration at Kingston had exclusively Mercian witnesses. But, if there was a planned West Saxon rebellion, it failed to materialise.
On the face of it, Æþelstan seems to have continued the expansion of the West Saxon state but we should be more critical. It is an age of consummate propagandists. He deployed the full range of political, legal and economic means to gain influence in the newly won territories.
Meanwhile in Alba, there were four decades of Constantin mac Aeda. At the start of his reign there was a genuine chance that Scotland as a whole would fall under Scandinavia but as his reign progresses, we see increasing confidence.
In York, Sigtryggr (Sitric Caech) opted for rapprochement with Æþelstan, marrying his sister. Oddly, we have no record of his wife’s name. That was in 925 but Sigtryggr was dead inside a year. Guðrøðr then attempted a coup in York which was countered by Æþelstan. Southern propaganda hails this an outright annexation of Northumbria. However, the King’s control of landholdings in the North remained limited.
The Eamont Bridge agreement followed. Eamont had once been part of the ancient British kingdom of Rheged before falling under Northumbrian control. It made sense as a meeting point for ‘wary neighbours’ There was an impressive array of insular monarchs present: Hywel of Cornwall, Constantin of Alba, Owain of Gwent and Ealdred Eadulfing of Bamburgh (Bernicia). But, in many ways, it is a repeat of Eadweard’s 920 agreement: an agreement simply to maintain the status quo.
So, what was the status quo of 920? Alba had dynastic stability. Dublin Norse York had diplomatic relations with Southern England and Bamburgh. But his rule also coincided with the revival of the British Kingdom of Cumbria-Strathclyde which had by then shifted its capital to Govan.
Æþelstan’s Grately Law Code
Grately stands a day’s ride from Winchester. The law code theoretically established one coinage for one kingdom. But all the named mints were in the South: Wessex, (Sussex) and Kent. There is no sign of places we know had the capacity to mint: York, Chester, East Anglia, the Five Boroughs. York may well have been the second most productive mint at the time. Blunt’s conclusion is that coinage continued to be organised on a regional basis.
Furthermore, the King himself rarely ventured beyond the confines of Wessex for seven years.
There are some other signs that all might not be quite as it is presented. The King’s half-brother, Eadwine, drowned at sea. It is possible that it was an accident – but it was certainly a convenient one.
A number of developments happen at broadly the same time. In Norway, the 80 year old King Haraldr Harfagri (Fairhair) dies in 933. The Annals of Ulster tell us that in 934 Guðrøðr dies and there is greater instability in Ireland. We are also told that in the same year, Adulf McEtulf, ‘King of the North Saxons’ dies. This last person is a somewhat confusing entry. He looks like he might have been a Bernician lord but he could also have been a native Deiran?
So, some seven years after Eamont Bridge, the North has destabilised once again. This situation prompted Æthelstan’s second Northern adventure. We benefit strongly here from the presence at Æthelstan’s Court of a scribe known only as ‘Æthelstan A’.
In May of 934 Æþelstan held Court in Winchester. A seemingly insignificant transfer of 12 hides of estate at ‘Drantune’ belies the major witnesses involved: Hywel the Good, Idwal Foel, Morgan of Gwent, Tewdr of Brycheiniog, bishops, archbishops, five Danish duces possibly representing the Five Boroughs – although we don’t know that.
The whole Court reassembled some 170 miles away at Nottingham, probably taking a route from Winchester via Reading, Wallingford, Oxford, Buckingham, Towcester, Northampton and Leicester.
Æþelstan had also purchased Amounderness (the area around the Ribble and the Forest of Bowland) and gifted it to the Church in York. It may previously have owed its rents to a Lord on Man or in Dublin. Basically, Æþelstan was gradually shifting control of the land away from Norse lordships – or, at least, Scandinavian lordships over which he had no control.
In the 930s, Æþelstan also made himself a generous supporter of Northumbria’s patron saint, St Cuthbert. There are a series of transfers of estate adjacent to the River Wear. But there will have been a price: in exchange Æþelstan probably wanted support for his expedition into territory controlled by Alba. All ASC versions agree that what followed was a major venture into Scotland. The Historia Regum adds that there were raids by Æþelstan as far north as Caithness. The King of Alba submitted to Æþelstan.
We have glimpses of what this might have looked like from Wales. Indeed, the King of Alba had to travel as far as Cirencester, the old capital of the Dobunni and part of the estate lands of the Hwicce. Post Eamont, the Welsh Kings had been called to Hereford. Indeed, the Armes Prydain Fawr – a vehemently anti-Saxon tract from Wales – clearly mentions the role Cirencester played in the collection of taxes (meiryon Kaer Geri). Whilst we are on the issue, it is hard to know how much traction Armes Prydain gained. For the body of opinion represented by Armes Prydain, Hywel was not so much ‘The Good’ but the principal Welsh appeaser.
However, in 935 Constantin was allowed to return home. Much more problematic is Æþelstan’s own whereabouts during that year. There are some clues. After Sigtryggyr’s death there appear to be major hoard burials in the hinterland around York. We can only guess at what these mean: Scandinavians on the run or just a period of uncertainty. If Æþelstan was now overlord in York, who governed Northumbria from day to day? There is no doubt that Wulfstan (931 – 856) may have been a significant player and was a beneficiary of the Amounderness grant of 934. Æþelstan may have employed a form of direct rule. Archaeologically, the period remains dark, if there was a Yorkshire equivalent to Yeavering or Cheddar, nobody has yet found it.
For Æþelstan, Northumbria’s cultural diversity was unfamiliar ground. Elmet (around modern Leeds) was a former British Kingdom which probably maintained at least some degree of nominal cultural separateness (despite years of Northumbrian cultural dominance), Bernicia was an Anglo-British hybrid with strong cultural and intellectual influences from Ireland. There were Scandinavians – not just Danes but also Norwegian Norse-Irish. Names such as Ferrensby betray the presence of another type of Scandinavian – from the Faroes. And there were native Irish. The streets of somewhere as central as York must have been enough to send Google Translate into meltdown! Whilst the church locally had adapted, fusing Viking mythology with Christian motifs, it would be fair to say that there were also many pre-Viking Conquest churches which did not survive the period.
Brunanburh and the death of Æðelstan
Æþelstan may well have visited York during this period. But, if he did, he can have been under no doubt that he had few friends in the area. What followed was one of the most important battles in British history – so important that nobody actually knows where it took place and several different sites are posited. This was the Battle of Brunanburh. Key players involved include the West Saxon king and his brother, Eadmund, Constantin of Alba, Owain of Strathclyde-Cumbria, possibly also the saga poet, Egil Skallagrisson (whose elder brother was a friend of Eric Bloodaxe) and the Dublin Norse leaders, Olafr Guðroðsson.
The 615 ships mentioned does not follow poetic convention so it may well be a serious, if exaggerated, attempt at an estimate. Let’s say there were only 400. We might be looking at 8000 men, possibly 12,000 including their Northern allies. Despite that they still lost.
Olafr was probably spoiling for a fight and entered into alliance with Constantin of Alba – who appears to have lost his life in the battle. The presumed objective was the recapture of York. What is notable is that the Welsh kings (i.e. Welsh kings from modern Wales) kept a careful diplomatic distance.
Our principle source is in the ASC, The Battle of Brunanburh (opens in new tab) but the battle is mentioned or alluded to in over forty Anglo-Saxon, Irish, Welsh, Scottish, Norman and Norse medieval texts.
But where was this battle? We have various versions of the name: Dun Brunde, Brunanburh, Wendun. There is also mention of Dingesmere and only far later does Florence of Worcester mention sailing up the Humber [although that is not strictly true]. If there is any consensus it is that the site might be Bromborough in the Wirral. In that case, Chester would have made a good bridgehead. However, Michael Wood has always taken the Humber line more seriously and suggested that the battle took place somewhere in South Yorkshire [anddrawn attention to a potentially significant spelling issue between ASC A and B/C]. Levalle has made the interesting comment that the very fact that we do not know the place may imply that it was territory which ceased to be under English control shortly after. Things were about to become more complex on that front because two years later in 939, Æðelstan, then aged 43, died at Gloucester.
Eadmund
The ASC is extremely coy about the times immediately following Æðelstan’s death. His imperium seems to have passed away with him. Northern texts suggest that in 940 Olafr miraculously recovered from his defeat three years earlier. Restyled as ‘Anlaf’ (the first time Old Norse appears on coins in Latin script), he married the daughter of the enigmatic Jarl Urm whose name, Aldgyð, sounds suspiciously English.
In 941 he attempted to take Northampton (and failed), then turned back on himself to ravage the old Mercian royal stronghold of Tamworth before meeting Eadmund at Leicester.
If the ASC is to be relied upon (and we do not know whether it really should be), then under Eadmund, the West Saxon regime continued with ‘business as usual’ even if on a less grand scale than under Æthelstan. In terms of spiritual guidance, the regime initially treated St Dunstan with contempt but repented and installed him as abbot. It was the beginnings of a major ecclesiastical reform with organisation under Benedictine rules from the 970s.
The Treaty of Leicester did not prevent King Olafr (Amlaib / Anlaf) from attempting to extend his influence into the non-Viking area of Bernicia – which extended up into Lothian. But death still awaited him and following his departure from this mortal coil, he was replaced by a namesake we know as Olafr Kvaran (which means something like ‘sandal’ in Gaelic). He may well have already been in York at the time – perhaps even from as far back as 940.
In 942, the official sources mention the ‘Five Boroughs‘ for the first time. The same source mentions Whitwell Gap and ‘Dore’ – theoretically, literally a door, but a place six miles southwest of Sheffield and the possible origin of the name of Deira.
In 942 Eadmund stood sponsor for Kvaran and another supposed Norse king, Rognvaldr. Interestingly, the text suggests that the Danes had become subject to the ‘heathen Norse’. Two Irish Norse kings and Danish Mercia had finally sided with Wessex. Hywel Dda took the opportunity to expel his surviving nephews and create the beginnings of modern Wales. Constantin abdicated and was replaced by Mael Coluim mac Domnall, whose father had been Constantin’s predecessor.
Between the new King of Alba and the young king of Wessex lay Dyfnwal (the British equivalent name to Domnall) in Cumbria-Strathclyde, Bernicia under an unknown dux and Kvaran and Rognvaldr in York. In 944 Eadmund brought ‘all of Northumbria’ under his control. It seems that whilst Wulfstan had been an ally of Olafr, he switched sides at this point, unprepared to support his two successors. If they were pagans, then that might make some coherent sense?
In 945 the king himself went to Northumbria to cement his relationship with the cult of St Cuthbert. Eadmund then ravaged Strathclyde-Cumbria, the two sons of King Dyfnwal being blinded. They may well already have been West Saxon hostages. Eadmund then either ceded or let Strathclyde-Cumbria to Mael Coluim of Alba. Eadmund was now overlord of all Britain south of the Clyde-Forth line. A few months later at Pucklechurch in Gloucestershire, he was stabbed to death.
After Eadmund
Following Eadmund’s murder in 946, his brother Eadred succeeded and his reign is characterised as quadripartite rule. That is to say:
- The Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of Wessex / Mercia and its direct dependencies
- The Northumbrians (probably not seen as ‘Anglo-Saxon’ thanks to years of domination by Scandinavian Jorvik)
- The ‘pagans’ (which almost certain denotes the Norse of Cheshire and Lancashire
- And the Britons of Wales and Cornwall.
The agreement is signed by Hywel Dda and Morgan son of Owain of Gwent, four ealdormen and four Danish jarls, including an especially interesting character called Urm.
In 946 Eadred was able to ‘reduce all Northumbria to subjection and the Scots promised to do his will’. Once again, the Treaty had been established at an historic point of tension between Mercia and Northumbria: Tanshelf. But what really happened?
Kvaran’s expulsion had left Southern Northumbria without a ruler. Erikr, son of Haraldr, was first mentioned four years later. It is quite possible that he was a protégé of Kvaran. Archbishop Wulfstan appears to have adopted the role of Jorvik’s ambassador at Tanshelf.
For years, Erikr was assumed to be Eric Bloodaxe. Both were described as ‘son of Haraldr’ but his wife’s name is an issue and it is more than just a name thing; there is the issue of religion as well. One might easily come to the conclusion that he was more likely to have been of Irish Norse extraction than from Norway.
None of that mattered to Eadred. He took an army up North and destroyed Ripon, one of the major religious centres of South Northumbria. But whilst travelling back down South, the rear of his army came under attack and was destroyed near Castleford. The result was a treaty but not one which ended York’s now quite long-term association with the Irish-Norse.
In 949, Kvaran returned from Dublin and was received in York. Wulfstan appears to have played the most delicately strategic of roles: transferring his allegiance accordingly but also continuing to attend Eadred’s council. We may be misinterpreting this: he may have been acting in an official capacity as Kvaran’s ambassador. Whatever ‘kingship’ meant in the North, it was definitely different to what it meant in the South during this period.
The following year, 950, Hywel the Good died and Gwynedd split away from what had previously been beginning to look like a united Wales. Meanwhile in Alba, Mael Coluim had become sufficiently confident to raid as far south as the Tees.
The ‘return’ of a probably different Eric and the death of Eadred
Mael Coluim raided as far south as the River Tees. Two years later Alba, Strathclyde and Bamburgh were all fighting on the same side against the Irish Norse. Kvaran returned to Dublin and then, rather improbably retired to a life of contemplation on Iona, where he died in 980.
This is the moment where most history books speak of the ‘return of Eric Bloodaxe’ but we are probably dealing with two different characters – but who knows. Whatever, Wulfstan’s situation was not great and he was imprisoned at the unidentified Iudanburh. In 954 Eric was driven out of Northumbria and submitted to Eadred. It is not the whole story because elsewhere we learn that he was killed by Earl Maccus at Stainmore on the modern A66 connecting Yorkshire with Penrith.
The truth is that the Viking narrative in England did not end with the death of the last Scandinavian king of York. King Eadred died a year later and the kingdom seems to have been split along familiar boundaries between Eadwig and Eadgar. Only after 959 can Eadgar be said to have ruled over a land we might call England. Twenty years later, the raids resumed. Two early 11th century kings would be Scandinavian ad William of Normandy after 1066 was the descendant of a Viking chieftain. Never mentioned is the fact that his opponent, the ‘defender of England’ was, himself, half-Scandinavian and his fate would be determined by family relations and his brother’s alliance with Norway.
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Ælfred’s Britain: War and Peace in the Viking Age
BEHIND THE TIMES 